Hi Friend, Welcome to Episode 38 of Sally’s Performing Arts Lab Podcast Show Notes and Blog. You've got your show. You've got your team. You might even have a few set pieces and costumes. But you have nowhere to perform. Today, I talk venues!
I’m your SallyPAL podcast host, Sally Adams. Every week I talk to people about creating original work for a live audience. Send an email anytime to Sally@sallypal.com. Your ideas keep great conversations coming every week.
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Finding a venue is one of the trickiest areas for the performing artist. We often think about venues as a place with a stage and lighting and seats for an audience. But there are so many other options. In fact, today it’s even possible to create a virtual venue. But we'll start with bricks and mortar.
When looking around for a space where you can invite an audience into an area to see a performance, you need a couple of things: Space to perform, and space for an audience to experience the performance. Traditionally, this is known as seating. But, of course, there are plenty of examples of shows with no actual seats for an audience. This could be anything from bringing their own seats as they would at a performance in a local park, or rave seating like Fuerza Bruta in New York where the audience stands and moves around for the entire show. You’ve probably seen live bands perform for dancing audiences.
For now let’s concentrate on the type of show where you're trying to tell a story to an audience and you want the audience to be focused on the story. This could be improv, dance, a play, an opera, you get the idea. When considering venues, there are two important things to consider with a story show: 1) Is the space appropriate to the production’s size? 2) Can every audience member see and hear the performance adequately?
Let’s address the first question. “Is the space appropriate to the production’s size?” There are performances where the performers outnumber audience members even when there’s a full house. This happens sometimes with children’s plays and dance recitals. Every family needs a ticket to see the kids perform. This is a pretty good problem to have. If you’re worried about the size of the venue and whether it will be adequate for the size of the audience, look around for local options. Churches and schools who rent auditoriums to large groups for fairly reasonable rates. Museums, libraries, and universities will sometimes fill the gap with large lecture halls and recital spaces.
More often than not, the problem isn’t having too big an audience, but having an audience that barely fills the front row. In a space is built for all-school assemblies it’s hard to enjoy a small show. A friend of mine who teaches at a public school in Tulsa, Oklahoma was able to solve this problem. A cavernous auditorium will swallow a small audience of parents and friends. My friend created seating on the actual stage. She then closed the main curtain. This created a space where the audience sat on three sides of a make-shift stage in the center of an enormous main stage. It kept the performance intimate. And the audience was able to enjoy the show without the gulf of separation many older school buildings have.
Other solutions include arranging for a show in a large room of someone’s home, or a backyard stage is an option. Many coffee houses and brew pubs have small performance areas. You can often find galleries, and dance studios that will open their doors to a performance group. There are plenty of basement theaters in big cities including New York and Chicago. As a member of an improv troupe I’ve had some great experiences performing in a yoga studio. There are so many options, it’s sometimes a matter of matching the venue to the performance.
In 2015, the avant-garde opera company the Industry staged it’s new opera, Hopscotch, in 24 cars on the roads of Los Angeles. Audience members were chauffeured in limos where scenes from the opera took place both in the cars and in parking lots. The company performed 24 live chapters over the course of 90 minutes. Tickets were naturally limited, so cameras and mics in each limo allowed director Yuval Sharon to live-stream the action to a central hub. Using 24 screens in the round, the public could watch the opera for free. Granted, this is a pretty expensive and technically challenging idea.
We can start to see options for performances that would allow for unusual venues that enhance, rather than detract from, the performance. Get creative, look around your community. What’s available? What environment enhances your story? I once saw an opera by Henry Mollicone titled, The Face on the Barroom Floor performed in a bar. Bars are noisy, as you can imagine. But like all venues, there are positives and negatives.
The second consideration regarding a venue is “Can every audience member see and hear the performance adequately?” This question can be broken down into three parts: 1) Do the site lines allow for every member of the audience to see the show? 2) Is the lighting adequate? 3) Can the audience hear and understand the show? (I mean, of course, can text and lyrics be understood not whether the ideas are too esoteric.)
Let’s talk about site lines first. By site lines, I mean: Is there an unobstructed line of site between each member of the audience and the area you want them to see? You might also include consideration for areas you do not want them to see. These include back stage, the mechanics for onstage effects, or the venue’s bathroom door.
Check the site lines by parking yourself in various areas where an audience member might sit and actually see things from that perspective. You don’t necessarily have to sit in every seat to determine if site lines are good. But you know that if there’s a pillar in the middle of your seating area, you want to avoid putting someone behind it. This actually happened to me when I saw Dreamgirls on Broadway. I guess a cheaper ticket in this case meant sitting behind the pillar that held up the balcony section. I spent the entire show leaning left and right and getting friendly with my neighbors.
You definitely don’t want the audience distracted by things like bathrooms and exit signs. It's really annoying when exit doors open onto brightly lit hallways during a performance. It’s important to give your audience some guidelines. I often say in this podcast that your audience is the final collaborator. Give them parameters so they can be engaged as collaborators. Remind audience members before each performance to turn off cell phones, and thank them for coming.
If your audience is new to live theatre, remind them that the actors are also live human beings engaged in telling a story. I’ve seen people take flash photos of dancers leaping and held my breath waiting for the dancers to land safely. Those announcements concerning flash photography are important for many reasons, including your performers’ safety. Once you have site lines and site line distractions managed, make sure the performance area is well-lit.
There is a big challenge when setting up for an audience. That is, lighting the show so that the audience can see it. This is where traditional theatre venues have an advantage.
Most theatrical spaces are already set up with stage lighting. If not, there are a lot of ways to light a stage from the super cheap to the hyper expensive. If you’re on a tight budget, a church or school venue may have lighting available for you to use on the cheap. they can sometimes even provide a lighting person. You can usually expect to pay your lighting person for rehearsals and performances.
There are also companies that rent out lights. And lighting professionals who, for a price, will go to your venue, set up lights, teach you how to operate their lighting system, and retrieve the lights when you're done. Prices vary, but you can go and look at prices online or even talk to someone local about the costs specific to your needs. The lighting for a one man show is usually much less complicated than the lighting for a full cast musical. You might also consider asking organizations if they already have lighting for their venues.
Sometimes parks departments have warehouses where they’ve stored lighting for years along with the holiday decorations. Sometimes they may not even know what they have. My husband, George, likes to say, “If you don't ask, you don't get.” So it never hurts to ask if the venue has lighting equipment. Always have the equipment checked out by a knowledgeable person. Fire hazards are real in the theatre world. If you’re working on a shoestring budget, consider a daytime performance in a mall or small park.
Another thing you might ask about at a venue is sound equipment. This is a little trickier when you're working on an outdoor stage. Poor sound at an outdoor event can send audiences running for their cars, and it’s tough to adjust for the outdoors. Again, the people who provide your lighting may also have sound equipment.
In Tulsa, a sound company I've worked with many times called Lone Wolf Audio provides professional guidance along with top notch equipment. The prices are reasonable, and they won’t make you feel like an idiot when you need to learn how to use the equipment. Matt will talk to you about your show’s sound and make sure you have what you need. Ask around in your community. The best technical people may not be the most expensive. You'll be able to get recommendations just like you do for hotels or doctors.
In 2013, my daughter, Emile, put together her first production outside of high school at the Equality Center in Tulsa. The closest thing to a play they had done up to that point was a drag show. They basically gave her a low set price for the venue and set her loose in the small warehouse. She got a good deal from Lone Wolf Audio and Matt, the owner, came to set up her lighting. The space was small enough and the actors were loud enough to be able to perform without sound equipment. After rehearsing the show in our house for a few weeks, she moved the play to the Equality Center Warehouse. There the actors set up the stage and rehearsed for a week before performing for a full house. I hear the Equality Center now has a permanent black box theater.
Knowing your space and what you can do in that space can be helpful. Many performance groups have a theatre or studio home where they can perform. But your home venue may not be perfect for every show you produce. If you have a venue available at a price you can afford but your show is not appropriate to that space, consider trading with someone who has a home space perfect for you show. It’s a great way to cross-pollinate your audiences and develop professional contacts and courtesies. We’ve been able to share costumes, sets, equipment, venues and even staff members at various locations.
There’s a relatively new type of venue gaining a foothold in the world of live performance and that’s the digital venue. Watching a live performance on a screen has been around since the early days of television when you could watch nearly everything live. There’s something Homeric about the experience of sharing an event performed live. Just ask 103.4 million Super Bowl fans. And while I understand there is a difference between being in the same room with the performers and watching them on a screen, you are, at least, still sharing the moment.
A few years ago I downloaded an app called Periscope so I could stop at a truck stop while traveling with my daughter, Emile, and we could watch a scene from her brother, Will’s, play performed live at a New York theatre. The connection was iffy, and the camera work was not great, but it was a thrill to be sitting in the middle of Nevada in a parking lot watching a live New York performance.
I hope this podcast helps to kick start your search for the perfect venue. Speaking of kick start, in addition to places online to find live streaming options, you’ll also find ways to fund your projects. I’ll go into some detail in another episode. But, just as there are uncommon venue options, there are also some funding options to consider when creating your event.
I hope you'll check out the blog, SallyPAL.com, for articles and podcast episodes. You, too, can be a SallyPAL. Sign up for a FREE Creator’s Notebook insert at SallyPAL.com/join. Thank you for following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, joining, & thank you for listening. Thanks to Hannah for emailing me, it was awesome to hear from you!
If you’re downloading and listening on your drive to work, or falling asleep to my Homeric form like my sister does, let me know you’re out there. I want you to pursue your dream and share your stories. Storytelling through plays, dances, music, and other types of performances is the most important thing we do as a culture. That’s why I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. And SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers. I want to help you tell your stories. All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination… Now… Go find a venue!
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